12/5/08


READING: Hello and welcome to another issue of the “13 Tribune”. Our reading series is
moving along quite nicely. Let’s check it out!
Our reading series is structured so that there are six themes we cover throughout the
year. We just recently finished a theme called “Nature Walk”. This had stories that dealt with
the outdoors and the natural world. The theme we’ve just begun is called “Around the Town”.
This theme has stories that look at different neighborhoods and communities. Your children will
learn many new skills and concepts in this theme. During the first week, we have already talked
about a lot. Our phonics skill for the week was the sounds made by consonant digraphs (th, wh,
sh, ch, tch). To help retain these sounds we learned the saying “Two letters, one sound”. We
have also practiced the use of common nouns, brainstorming some huge lists on the board. The
theme story this week was “Chinatown”. We used this story to discuss writing summaries. We
want to tell the important parts of the story, and leave the details for the actual author.
Finally we practiced putting words in ABC order to the third letter. For example: brAid, brEad,
brUsh. This skill really comes in handy when using a dictionary. Our story for next week is “A
Trip to the Firehouse”. During this time we will practice words with the vowel pairs “ai”
and “ay”. We will look at proper nouns as well. Also, we will question what we read so that we
can better understand the selection.

MATH: Since last time, we have completed our unit on money. It was difficult at times,
but the children did excellent on the unit-ending assessments. We have since moved on to
chapter 5 in our math series, which deals with adding double digit numbers. We began by using
our basic number facts to add tens. We then practiced adding tens on to any number, which
eventually led us right into regrouping. We did a lot of practice using number cubes and “ten
frames” to decide if we needed to regroup or not. After several days of this, we learned how to
write out these math problems on paper, instead of just modeling them. The children learned
to “carry the one” when it came time to regroup. They have all been extremely successful so far
and look to finish off the chapter strong. Keep up the good work second
graders!


SCIENCE: Over the past several weeks we have been pushing forward with our study of
ponds. The children have continued learning about and brainstorming lists of the many plants
and animals that can be found in the pond habitat. We have also been discussing which part of
the pond we can find these plants and animals in. Some live in the “shallows”, which are the
shallow areas around the edge of the pond. Others can be found on the “muddy bottom”,
searching for food in the thick mud. Still more plants and animals can be found in the “open
water”, which covers the surface and deeper water areas. Go ahead and ask your child what can
be found in each section.
Over the last few days we wrapped up our pond unit by taking the final pond test. We also
created a beautiful pond mural that we have proudly displayed in the hallway here at Hynes.
From here we jump over to social studies, where we are just beginning a lengthy study of
communities. We have a lot of fun activities planned for this unit, so it should be an exciting
time!

- Mr. Step -